Uttarakhand News: The way has now been cleared to shift the High Court in Uttarakhand from Nainital to Haldwani. Taking a major decision in this matter, the Supreme Court has approved the transfer of the High Court to Haldwani. Along with this, the Supreme Court has also canceled the order of Uttarakhand High Court, in which instructions were given to hold a referendum among lawyers and litigants.
This comment of the Supreme Court is being considered very important in this entire matter. The court clearly said that it was not appropriate to issue such a direction from the judicial side and the High Court did not have the authority to pass such an order.
SC ordered to give necessary approvals in 6 weeks
The case was heard by a bench of Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana. During the hearing, the Supreme Court directed that all the necessary approvals related to the transfer of the High Court should be completed within 6 weeks.
The court also ordered that the land earmarked for the High Court be handed over to it as soon as possible, so that the further process can be completed without any delay.
The cabinet had approved the proposal in the year 2022
According to the information, the Cabinet of Uttarakhand Government had approved the proposal to shift the High Court from Nainital to Haldwani in the year 2022. After this, many legal and administrative processes started in this matter.
However, later the Uttarakhand High Court put a stay on this proposal and ordered a referendum among lawyers and litigants to decide whether the High Court should be shifted from Nainital to Haldwani or not.
This order was challenged in SC
According to media reports, Uttarakhand High Court Bar Association had filed an appeal in the Supreme Court in this matter. In this appeal, the order of May 8, 2024 was challenged, in which the High Court had rejected the state government’s proposal to establish a new High Court in Golapar area of Haldwani.
The High Court had said at that time that about 75% of the proposed 26 hectare land falls in the forest area and cutting of trees for this project would not be appropriate. Therefore the state government was ordered to search for some other suitable land.
High Court had given many reasons behind the transfer
In its earlier order, the High Court had also admitted that there were many practical reasons for shifting the High Court from Nainital to some other place. These included frequent traffic jams, lack of good medical facilities, poor connectivity, high cost of living, housing problems for lawyers and problems faced by litigants coming from remote districts.
Keeping all these aspects in mind, the High Court had ordered to conduct a referendum through an online portal to know the opinion of the people and to constitute a committee to investigate the entire matter. However, now the Supreme Court has canceled that order and has completely cleared the way for transfer of the High Court to Haldwani.
